I remember pretty vividly the first time I cheated in school. I was sitting next to a cute blonde haired, blue eyed boy. He had a feminine name like Ashley, but his name wasn’t Ashley. We were learning about Earth in class. I think it was second grade. Most of the page was coloring and it only had one question. He whispered to me, asking the answer. I said I didn’t know.

He said he’d write “yes” as his answer if I wrote “no.” Even though I was young, I remember thinking he was cute, and that I probably would have done anything he asked. I wrote “no” as my answer. I watched him write “yes” as his answer. We both had shit-eating grins on our faces as we turned in our pages to the teacher.

The question was, “Is there more water or land on Earth?” Obviously, we both got the question wrong, and we totally got caught by our teacher for cheating. Lesson: don’t cheat with cute boys.

I think of this story every time I teach an Earth lesson.